December 16, 2011

Our kids are no longer allowed to say the word Christmas in school, so we’re not going to say it in our Christmas letter either. We sure don’t want them to get suspended or anything.

It’s hard to believe that 2011 is already over and we’re moving into 2012. As we all know, this will be the last year for the existence of Planet Earth. It was nice having all of you in our lives. Well, most of you.

So we always like to use our Christmas letter as a way to reflect on our lives over the past year and to celebrate all the gifts we’ve been given during that time. But to do this without making people throw up in their mouths a little can be quite challenging. But we’re forced to do our best so here goes.

Somehow, Todd still has a job. He’s selling high performance computing solutions for Nor-Tech. The highlight of this year was when he was lucky enough to join his bosses and some good folks at the Intel Corporation for a trip to the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia. He baked in the hot sun on the edge of the 6th green the whole day and cried about the fact that they wouldn’t let him bring his camera on the course! His one chance in life to get a photo taken with Tiger Woods was ruined! Therefore, his entire scheme to earn a blackmail windfall from a Tiger Woods themed sex scandal was ruined as well.

Sheri is still working as a paraprofessional at one of the local elementary schools. Things have really been working out good for her ever since she had that restraining order lifted.

We continue to push Luke and Avery harder and harder to try to make up for all the things we didn't achieve when we were children. Every now and then, we think we’re going to break them, but so far so good.

We force them to do crazy things like Robotics Club, Boy Scouts, Honor Band, Golf Lessons, and Ski Club. A couple of those things they even seem to enjoy some times which is nice.

Boy Scouts can be especially grueling. We do things like go camping. This means we actually sleep outside in Minnesota when the temperatures ain’t anywhere near 72 degrees. That’s our ideal sleeping temperature! The only positive thing about camping is that we've become really good at not having to go to the bathroom for an entire weekend. At least not number two. One time in February, we even went camping inside of a cave in Wisconsin for two nights! That’s a special level of Hell that Dante didn't write about. The only fun part was trying to squeeze Todd’s belly through some of those tight crevices that we crawled through. Lucky we did, because if he’d have remained stuck there, he’d probably be a fossil by now.

We've currently immersed ourselves in building a robot for the Middle School Robotics Club. Luke and Avery along with two of their classmates have designed, built, programmed, and tested a cool robot that they can control with a joystick to drive over ramps and dump footballs into a box. There’s gotta be some skills they’re developing that we can eventually exploit someday. After all, who doesn't want a robot that can drop footballs into a box?

Our Golden Retriever, Sunny, is now 6 years old and is extremely affectionate. Especially with Todd. It makes Sheri all sorts of concerned. Todd really doesn't quite get what the big deal is. They’re just dog kisses.

Other than all those things, we've had a really great year!!

Our goal for 2012 is to stay married. Things always get a little precarious in our relationship after Todd shows Sheri what our Christmas Letter says.

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